The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thomas Stanley: His Original Lyrics, Complete, in Their Collated Readings of 1647, 1651, 1657., Edited by L. I. Guiney.

Despair.

No, no, poor blasted Hope!
Since I (with thee) have lost the scope
Of all my joys, I will no more
Vainly implore
The unrelenting Destinies:5
He that can equally sustain
The strong assaults of joy and pain,
May safely laugh at their decrees.

Despair, to thee I bow,
Whose constancy disdains t’allow10
Those childish passions that destroy
Our fickle joy;
How cruel Fates so e’er appear,
Their harmless anger I despise,
And fix’d, can neither fall nor rise,15
Thrown below hope, but rais’d ’bove fear.

The Picture.

Thou that both feel’st and dost admire
The flames shot from a painted fire,
Know Celia’s image thou dost see:
Not to herself more like is she.
He that should both together view5
Would judge both pictures, or both true.
But thus they differ: the best part
Of Nature this is; that of Art.

Opinion.

Whence took the diamond worth? the borrow’d rays
That crystal wears, whence had they first their praise?
Why should rude feet contemn the snow’s chaste white,
Which from the sun receives a sparkling light,
Brighter than diamonds far, and by its birth5
Decks the green garment of the richer earth?
Rivers than crystal clearer, when to ice
Congeal’d, why do weak judgements so despise?
Which, melting, show that to impartial sight
Weeping than smiling crystal is more bright.10
But Fancy those first priz’d, and these did scorn,
Taking their praise the other to adorn.
Thus blind is human sight: opinion gave
To their esteem a birth, to theirs a grave;
Nor can our judgements with these clouds dispense,15
Since reason sees but with the eyes of sense.

II. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1651.

The Cure.

Nymph.

What busy cares, too timely born,
Young swain! disturb thy sleep?
Thy early sighs awake the morn,
Thy tears teach her to weep.

Shepherd.

Sorrows, fair nymph, are full alone,5
Nor counsel can endure.

Nymph.

Yet thine disclose; for, until known,
Sickness admits no cure.

Shepherd.

My griefs are such as but to hear
Would poison all thy joys;10
The pity which thou seem’st to bear
My health, thine own destroys.

Nymph.

How can diseased minds infect?
Say what thy grief doth move!

Shepherd.

Call up thy virtue to protect15
Thy heart, and know—’twas love.

Nymph.

Fond swain!

Shepherd.

By which I have been long
Destin’d to meet with hate.

Nymph.

Fie! shepherd, fie! thou dost love wrong,
To call thy crime thy fate.20

Shepherd.

Alas! what cunning could decline,
What force can love repel?

Nymph.

Yet there’s a way to unconfine
Thy heart.

Shepherd.

For pity, tell.

Nymph.

Choose one whose love may be assur’d25
By thine: who ever knew
Inveterate diseases cur’d
But by receiving new?

Shepherd.

All will, like her, my soul perplex.

Nymph.

Yet try.

Shepherd.

Oh, could there be30
But any softness in that sex,
I’d wish it were in thee!

Nymph.

Thy prayer is heard: learn now t’esteem
The kindness she hath shown,
Who, thy lost freedom to redeem,35
Hath forfeited her own.

To the Countess of S[underland?] with the Holy Court.[1:1]

Since every place you bless, the name
This book assumes may justlier claim.
(What more a court than where you shine?
And where your soul, what more divine?)
You may perhaps doubt at first sight5
That it usurps upon your right;
And praising virtues that belong
To you, in others, doth you wrong.
No, ’tis yourself you read, in all
Perfections earlier ages call10
Their own; all glories they e’er knew
Were but faint prophecies of you.
You then have here sole interest, whom ’tis meant
As well to entertain, as represent.

Drawn For Valentine by the L[ady] D[orothy] S[pencer?].[2:1]

Though ’gainst me Love and Destiny conspire,
Though I must waste in an unpitied fire,
By the same deity, severe as fair,
Commanded adoration and despair;
Though I am mark’d for sacrifice, to tell5
The growing age what dangerous glories dwell
In this bright dawn, who, when she spreads her rays,
Will challenge every heart, and every praise;
Yet she who to all hope forbids my claim,
By Fortune’s taught indulgence to my flame,10
Great Queen of Chance! unjustly we exclude
Thy power an interest in beatitude,
Who with mysterious judgement dost dispense
The bounties of unerring Providence;
Whilst we, to whom the causes are unknown,15
Would style that blindness thine, which is our own.
As kind, in justice to thyself, as me,
Thou hast redeem’d thy name and votary:
Nor will I prize this less for being thine,
Nor longer at my destiny repine.20
Counsel and choice are things below thy state:
Fortune relieves the cruelties of Fate.

III. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1657 [JOHN GAMBLE’S AYRES AND DIALOGUES] HAVING NO TITLES.

On this Swelling Bank.

On this swelling bank, once proud
Of its burden, Doris lay:
Here she smil’d, and did uncloud
Those bright suns eclipse the day;
Here we sat, and with kind art5
She about me twin’d her arms,
Clasp’d in hers my hand and heart,
Fetter’d in those pleasing charms.

Here my love and joys she crown’d,
Whilst the hours stood still before me,10
With a killing glance did wound,
And a melting kiss restore me.
On the down of either breast,
Whilst with joy my soul retir’d,
My reclining head did rest,15
Till her lips new life inspir’d.

Thus, renewing of these sights
Doth with grief and pleasure fill me,
And the thought of these delights
Both at once revive and kill me!20

Dear, fold me once more.

Dear, fold me once more in thine arms!
And let me know
Before I go
There is no bliss but in those charms.
By thy fair self I swear5
That here, and only here,
I would for ever, ever stay:
But cruel Fate calls me away.

How swiftly the light minutes slide!
The hours that haste10
Away thus fast
By envious flight my stay do chide.
Yet, Dear, since I must go,
By this last kiss I vow,
By all that sweetness which dwells with thee,[3:1]15
Time shall move slow, till next I see thee.

The Lazy Hours.

The lazy hours move slow,
The minutes stay;
Old Time with leaden feet doth go,
And his light wings hath cast away.
The slow-pac’d spheres above5
Have sure releas’d
Their guardians, and without help move,
Whilst that the very angels rest.

The number’d sands that slide
Through this small glass,10
And into minutes Time divide,
Too slow each other do displace;
The tedious wheels of light
No faster chime,
Than that dull shade which waits on night:15
For Expectation outruns Time.

How long, Lord, must I stay?
How long dwell here?
O free me from this loathed clay!
Let me no more these fetters wear!20
With far more joy
Shall I resign my breath,
For, to my griev’d soul, not to die
Is every minute a new death.

IV. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN EDITIONS OF 1647 AND 1651.

Love’s Innocence.[4:1]

See how this ivy strives to twine [4:2]
Her wanton arms about the vine,
And her coy lover thus restrains,
Entangled in her amorous chains;
See how these neighb’ring palms do bend5
Their heads, and mutual murmurs send,
As whispering with a jealous fear [4:3]
Their loves into each other’s ear.

Then blush not such a flame to own
As, like thyself, no crime hath known;10
Led by these harmless guides, we may
Embrace and kiss as well as they.

}

[4:4]

And like those blessed souls above,
Whose life is harmony and love,
Let us our mutual thoughts betray,15
And in our wills our minds display.
This silent speech is swifter far
Than the ears’ lazy species are;
And the expression it affords
(As our desires,) ’bove reach of words.20
Thus we, my Dear, of these may learn [4:5]
A passion others not discern;
Nor can it shame or blushes move,
Like plants to live, like angels love:
Since all excuse with equal innocence25
What above reason is, or beneath sense.

The Dedication.[5:1]

To Love.

Thou whose sole name all passions doth comprise:
Youngest and eldest of the Deities,
Born without parents, whose unbounded reign
Moves the firm earth, fixeth the floating main,
Inverts the course of heaven, and from the deep5
Awakes those souls that in dark Lethe sleep,
By thy mysterious chains seeking t’unite,
Once more, the long-since-torn hermaphrodite!
He who thy willing prisoner long was vow’d,
And uncompell’d beneath thy sceptre bow’d,10
Returns at last in thy soft fetters bound,
With victory, though not with freedom, crown’d:
And, (of his dangers past a grateful sign,)
Suspends this tablet at thy numerous shrine.

The Glow-Worm.

Stay, fairest Chariessa, stay and mark
This animated gem,[6:1] whose fainter spark
Of fading light, its birth had from the dark:

A star thought by the erring [6:2] passenger
Which falling from its native orb, dropped here,5
And makes the earth, its centre, now its sphere.

Should many of these sparks together be,
He that the unknown light far off should see
Would think it a terrestrial galaxy.

Take ’t up, fair Saint; see how it mocks thy fright;10
The paler flame doth not yield heat, though light,
Which thus deceives [6:3] thy reason, through thy sight.

But see how quickly it, ta’en up, doth fade,
(To shine in darkness only being made),
By th’ brightness of thy light turn’d to a shade,15

And burnt to ashes by thy flaming eyes!
On the chaste altar of thy hand it dies,
As to thy greater light a sacrifice.

To Chariessa,[7:1]

Desiring her to Burn his Verses.

These papers, Chariessa, let thy breath
Condemn, thy hand unto the flames bequeath;
’Tis fit who gave them life, should give them death.

And whilst [7:2] in curled flames to heaven they rise,
Each trembling sheet shall, as it upwards flies,5
Present itself to thee a sacrifice.

Then when above [7:3] its native orb it came,
And reach’d the lesser lights o’ th’ sky, this flame,
Contracted to a star, should wear thy name,

Or falling down on earth from its bright sphere,10
Shall in a diamond’s shape its lustre bear,
And trouble (as it did before) thine ear.

But thou wilt cruel even in mercy be,
Unequal in thy justice, who dost free
Things without sense from flames, and yet not me!15

On Mr. Fletcher’s Works [1647].[8:1]

Fletcher, whose fame no age can ever waste,
(Envy of ours, and glory of the last,)
Is now alive again; and with his name
His sacred ashes wak’d into a flame
Such as before could [8:2] by a secret charm5
The wildest heart subdue, the coldest warm,
And lend the ladies’ eyes a power more bright,
Dispensing thus, to either, heat and light.
He to a sympathy those souls betray’d
Whom love or beauty never could persuade;10
And in each mov’d spectator did [8:3] beget
A real passion by a counterfeit.
When first Bellario bled, what lady there
Did not for every drop let fall a tear?
And when Aspasia wept, not any eye15
But seem’d to wear the same sad livery;
By him inspir’d, the feign’d Lucina drew
More streams of melting sorrow than the true;
But then The Scornful Lady did [8:4] beguile
Their easy griefs, and teach them all to smile.20
Thus he affections could or raise or lay;
Love, grief, and mirth thus did his charms obey:
He Nature taught her passions to out-do,
How to refine the old, and create new;
Which such a happy likeness seem’d to bear,25
As if that Nature Art, Art Nature were.
Yet all had nothing been, obscurely kept
In the same urn wherein his dust hath slept;
Nor had he risen [8:5] the Delphic wreath to claim,
Had with [8:6] the dying scene expir’d his name.30
O the indulgent justice of this age,
To grant the press what it denies the stage!
Despair our joy hath doubled: he is come
Twice welcome by this post liminium.
His loss preserv’d him; they that silenc’d wit35
Are now the authors to eternize it.
Thus poets are in spite of Fate reviv’d,
And plays, by intermission, longer liv’d.

To the Lady D[ormer].[9:1]

Madam! the blushes I betray,
When at your feet I humbly lay
These papers, beg you would excuse
Th’ obedience of a bashful Muse,
Who, bowing to your strict command,5
Trusts her own errors to your hand,
Hasty abortives, which, laid by,
She meant, ere they were born, should die:
But since the soft power of your breath
Hath call’d them back again from death,10
To your sharp judgement now made known,
She dares for hers no longer own;
The worst she must not: these resign’d
She hath to th’ fire; and where you find
Those your kind charity admir’d,15
She writ but what your eyes inspir’d.

To Mr. W[illiam] Hammond.

Thou best of Friendship, Knowledge, and of Art!
The charm of whose lov’d name preserves my heart
From female vanities, (thy name, which there
Till time dissolves the fabric, I must wear!)
Forgive a crime which long my soul oppress’d,5
And crept by chance in my unwary breast,
So great, as for thy pardon were unfit,
And to forgive were worse than to commit,
But that the fault and pain were so much one,
The very act did expiate what was done.10
I, who so often sported with the flame,
Play’d with the Boy, and laugh’d at both as tame,
Betray’d by idleness and beauty, fell
At last in love, love both the sin and hell:
No punishment great as my fault esteem’d,15
But to be that which I so long had seem’d.
Behold me such: a face, a voice, a lute;
The sentence in a minute execute.
I yield, recant; the faith which I before
Deny’d, profess; the power I scorn’d, implore.20
Alas, in vain! no prayers, no vows can bow
Her stubborn heart, who neither will allow.
But see how strangely what was meant no less
Than torment, prov’d my greatest happiness;
Delay, that should have sharpen’d, starv’d Desire,25
And Cruelty not fann’d, but quench’d my fire.
Love bound me; now, by kind Disdain set free,
I can despise that Love as well as she.
That sin to friendship I away have thrown!
My heart thou may’st without a rival own,[10:1]30
While such as willingly themselves beguile,
And sell away their freedoms for a smile,
Blush to confess our joys as far above
Their hopes, as friendship’s longer-liv’d than love.

On Mr. Shirley’s Poems [1646].[11:1]

When, dearest Friend, thy verse doth re-inspire
Love’s pale decaying torch with brighter fire,
Whilst everywhere thou dost dilate thy flame,
And to the world spread thy Odelia’s name,
The justice of all ages must remit5
To her the prize of beauty, thee of wit.
Then, like some skilful artist, that to wonder [11:2]
Framing some [11:3] piece, displeas’d, takes it asunder,
Thou Beauty dost depose, her charms deny,
And all the mystic chains of Love untie.10
Thus thy diviner Muse a power ’bove Fate
May boast, that can both make and uncreate.
Next, thou call’st back to life that love-sick boy,
To the kind-hearted nymphs less fair than coy,
Who, by reflex beams burnt with vain desire,15
Did, phœnix-like, in his own flames expire;
But should he view his shadow drawn by thee,
He with himself once more in love would be.
Echo, (who though she words [11:4] pursue, her haste
Can only overtake and stop the last,)20
Shall her first speech and human voice [11:5] obtain,
To sing thy softer numbers o’er again.
Thus, into dying poetry, thy Muse
Doth full perfection and new life infuse.
Each line deserves a laurel, and thy praise25
Asks not a garland, but a grove of bays;
Nor can ours raise thy lasting trophies higher,
Who only reach at merit to admire.
But I must chide thee, friend: how canst thou be
A patron, yet a foe to Poesy?[11:6]30

For while thou dost this age to verse restore,
Thou dost deprive the next of owning more;

}

[11:7]

And hast so far all future times surpass’d,[11:8]
That none dare write: thus, being first and last,
All their abortive Muses will suppress,35
And Poetry, by this increase, grow less.

On Mr. Sherburne’s Translation of Seneca’s Medea, and Vindication of the Author [1647-8].[12:1]

That wise philosopher who had design’d
To [th’] life the various passions of the mind,
Did wrong’d Medea’s jealousy prefer
To entertain the Roman theatre;
Both to instruct the soul, and please the sight,5
At once begetting horror and delight.
This cruelty thou dost once more express
Though in a strange, no less becoming dress;
And her revenge hast robb’d of half its pride,
To see itself thus by itself outvied,10
That boldest ages past may say, our times
Can speak, as well as act, their highest crimes.
Nor was’t enough to do his scene this right,
But what thou gav’st to us, with equal light
Thou wouldst bestow on him, nor wert more just15
Unto the author’s work, than to his dust.
Thou dost make good his title, aid his claim,
Both vindicate his poem and his name,
So shar’st a double wreath; for all that we
Unto the poet [12:2] owe, he owes to thee.20
Though change of tongues stol’n praise to some afford,
Thy version hath not borrow’d, but restor’d.

On Mr. Hall’s Essays [Horae Vacivae, 1646].[13:1]

Wits that matur’d by time have courted praise,
Shall see their works outdone in these essays,
And blush to know thy earlier years display
A dawning clearer than their brightest day.[13:2]
Yet I’ll not praise thee, for thou hast outgrown5
The reach of all men’s praises but thine own.
Encomiums to their objects are exact:
To praise, and not at full, is to detract.
And with most justice are the best forgot;
For praise is bounded when the theme is not:10
Since mine is thus confin’d, and far below
Thy merit, I forbear it, nor will show
How poor the autumnal pride of some appears,[13:3]
To the ripe fruit thy vernal season bears!
Yet though I mean no praise, I come t’invite15
Thy forward aims still to advance their flight.
Rise higher yet; what though thy spreading wreath
Lessen, to their dull sight who stay beneath?
To thy full learning how can all allow
Just praise, unless that all were learn’d as thou?20
Go on, in spite of such low souls, and may
Thy growing worth know age, though not decay,
Till thou pay back thy theft, and live to climb
As many years as thou hast snatch’d from Time.

On Sir J[ohn] S[uckling] his Picture and Poems [1646].[14:1]

Suckling, whose numbers could invite
Alike to wonder and delight,
And with new spirit did inspire
The Thespian scene, and Delphic lyre,
Is thus express’d in either part,5
Above the humble reach of Art.
Drawn by the pencil, here you find
His form; by his own pen, his mind.

Answer [to “The Union,” Poem addressed to Stanley by his Friend and Tutor, William Fairfax].[15:1]

If we are one, dear Friend! why shouldst thou be
At once unequal to thyself and me?
By thy release thou swell’st my debt the more,
And dost but rob thyself to make me poor.
What part can I have in thy luminous cone,5
What flame, since my love’s thine, can call my own,
(The palest star is less the son of night,)
Who but thy borrow’d know no native light?[15:2]
Was’t not enough thou freely didst bestow
The Muse, but thou must [15:3] give the laurel too,10
And twice my aims by thy assistance raise,
Conferring first the merit, then the praise?
But I should do thee greater injury,
Did I believe this praise were meant to me,
Or thought, though thou hast worth enough to spare15
T’enrich another soul, that mine should share.
Thy Muse, seeming to lend, calls home her fame,
And her due wreath doth, in renouncing, claim.

II. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1651.

III. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN THE EDITION OF 1657 [JOHN GAMBLE’S AYRES AND DIALOGUES] HAVING NO TITLES.

IV. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN EDITIONS OF 1647 AND 1651.

V. LYRICS PRINTED ONLY IN EDITIONS OF 1647 AND 1657 [GAMBLE].